FEBRUARY in the Studio

ICE CREAM with Wayne Thiebaud: We started off the month by finishing our yummy, pop art treats. Oil pastel details were added to the painted cones.

Art Words: Pop Art

Hungry yet?

HATS AND EYES with Rene Magritte: I found a marvelous book at the VMFA called Magritte's Marvelous Hat, in which the famous Surrealist painter finds that his bowler hat is the key to his painting success. With his hat he paints like a master. When he looses it, his ability to paint is lost too. The PreK/K classes tried on lots of art hats to see if the same would be true for them. Sure enough, they felt their art was better when created while wearing a hat. The Elementary classes used Magritte's famous painting The False Mirror as inspiration for their own surrealist takes on what can be seen in the mind's eye.

Art Words: Surrealism

Everything is better in a hat.

OP ART HEARTS: Around the middle of the month our thoughts turned to love and we created various heart artwork. We made hearts that seem to pop out at you, hearts that seem to move, heart-shaped valentines and used hearts as stencils for fingerpainting. It was a lovely week!

Art Words: Op Art, Stencil

Valentines for our valentines.

COLLAGES after Reggie Laurent: Atlanta artist Reggie Laurent uses layer upon layer of paint to create his colorful, abstract shape paintings. We didn't have quite that much time, so we used colorful paper shapes and oil pastels for a similar effect.

Art Words: Amorphous/Organic/Free Form Shape

Hearts make another appearance,

ABSTRACTS after Sarah Morris: The last week of classes was catch up time for the older kids, but the PreK/K classes continued their focus on shape with Sarah Morris. Tape was used to block off rectilinear shapes which were then filled with bright oil pastels.

Art Words: Resist

Busy.

AND... the Art Explorers were busy as usual! So... very...busy. We created an extensive project using yarn relief then earth tone paint, then sponged on gold and silver accents. The aforementioned finger paint hearts were joined by finger paint trees and we also started a work based on Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. And we did some of it in hats!

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation - All About Me

When you are a kid in the summer, it is truly all about you. No school to suck up your precious time. No parents nagging about bedtime. The days are long and there's plenty of time for introspection. Who are you? What will you do? Where will you go? What makes you special? Artists have asked these questions since time began, and they've used self-portraiture to find the answers. This was our focus during the hottest days of July.

We played a portrait game to get to know each other better.

Albrecht Durer 1471 - 1528 - Durer created his first self-portrait at the age of 13 and went on to make at least 10 during his lifetime.

We began with a straight forward self-portrait.

Lots of improvement after a lesson on proportion, 

Vincent van Gogh 1853 - 1890 - Van Gogh suffered from mental illness and addiction and may have used self-portraiture as a way to untangle his mind.

Tracing hands and feet for "falling back" portraits,

It's all about perspective.

Self-portrait Go Fish is cut throat, I tell you. Too much drama for me.

Jim Dine born 1935 - Represents himself as a bathrobe in his art!

What clothing represents you?

Eventually the weather cooperated and we got to spend some time outside.

This was a fun project. We created the backgrounds then
traced our photos onto acetate to lay over the top.

Frida Kahlo 1907 - 1954 - Kahlo was nearly killed in a bus accident as a young woman. She was crippled for life and used self-portraiture to deal with her constant pain.

What's in your head?

On the last day we put all we'd learned into action,
creating any kind of self portrait we wanted.

This one includes the artist in her
favorite place with her best friend.

All About Vincent

In honor of tomorrow's camp subject:

a Vincent van Gogh self-portrait puzzle!

Starry Nights

I don't often post the results of projects, but these landscapes turned out so beautifully I can't resist. We studied Vincent Van Gogh, looked closely at the texture he created with his palette knife and discussed his use of colors in Starry Night. Then we dipped chalk pieces into tempera paint to approximate that depth and variation of color in our own landscapes. The instructions were there had to be a horizon line, at least one wavy cypress tree and at least one celestial body. Other than that, no rules. My intention was for the project to be just paint and chalk, but the effect wasn't quite what I'd hoped for. Once the paint dried we came back and added swirls and details with oil pastels. That's more like it! These works are by students aged 6 - 11. Enjoy!